What is influencer marketing?

Influencers are those who can make an impact on the audience to convert into customers. Influencer marketing is the process in which people who can impact conversations with customers about a product of product are identified and engaged.

The popularity of this marketing is because of the immense ROI and the marketing potential. Influencers are like wavemakers. These are the people highly trusted by people social web.

Using a public figure to deliver messages is not new. But this is paid and inauthentic, and people may trust them very little. Here is where the support the online influencers.

Types of Influencers

There are different types of influencer. These are a celebrity, macro, and micro influencers.

Celebrity influencers are musicians, actors and athletes.

Macro influencers are social media personalities, bloggers, and journalists with followers between ten thousand and one million. These can drive engagement up to 25% per post.

Micro influencer has up to ten thousand followers and can drive high engagement with 25 to 50 percent engagement per post. Based on the requirements of the brands, they must narrow the target audience and choose the influencer who can be more effective and cheaper. Micro influencers can be the best choice is they are relevant to the audience of the brands.

Finding the Right Influencers

Google reported that there is more than five thousand percent increase in searches for influencer marketing in 2016 itself. More than sixty percent of marketers are planning to boost the budgets of their influencer marketing. It is going to further become bigger in the coming years.

The big challenge for any brands who want to adopt influencer marketing is to find the right influencer. They must first know the type of influencer that they are looking for. More than the reach, what one should give priority is for relevance.

After finding the right influencer, send a message to the influencer if you have a personal connection. Use the different channel to reach them such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Start the conversation more naturally. Continue the conversation and then tell them about how partnering with them will benefit both of you.

There are online tools that help in finding the right influencers. These include the NeoReach, Influenza, TapInfluence, Fame bit and others. There are also other platforms that measure the social influence and can be sort of content, topics, etc. There include Buzzsumo, Klear, etc.

Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy

Influencer marketing is a powerful strategy to capture wider audiences. Before starting the marketing campaign, it is important to set goals. It could be increasing the social media followers, improving the website ranking of increasing awareness of the new product.

After identifying the influencer relevant to the brand, begin creating content. Promote the content through different social media pages, website, etc.

Track the success of the marketing campaign. Check if the goals of the campaign are reached or not. If not, make some changes to the campaign. Build relationships with the influencer.

Data Driven Reasons why Influencer marketing is here to stay

Influencer marketing is proving to be stronger with the change in online habits of the people and the increasing number of people online. Here are some figures and data that will convince people that influencer marketing is here to say.

Since the last decade, the use of social media skyrocketed. From just 10 percent in 2005, the number of online adults using social media increased to 79% in 2016, and it is not just Facebook, but people are on Instagram, Twitter and other platforms also.

People are not just having social media account, but they are very active also on them.

With the increase of some people on social media and number of active users, there is also increase in the number of people who trust referrals and recommendations of influencers. A study revealed that eighty-three percent of people said that they trust recommendations and sixty-six percent people stated that they believe the consumer opinions and customer reviews that are available o different online sites.

There was no influencer marketing if people did not other social media influencers led that young internet users like YouTube other social media influencer more than they like the music of television celebrities. PewDiePie, Fine Bros and social media celebrities are more popular with teens than other celebs.

Studies found that more than fifty percent of online users rely on recommendations made by influencers. The purchasing decisions of these people are greatly influenced by the reviews of the influencers.

Traditional form of digital advertising is facing a challenge as people are using ad blockers making it difficult for the brands to reach them. Influencer marketing is a more effective way to reach people.

Influencer marketing is rated high by content marketers based on the effectiveness and reach. We can see an increase in influencer marketing budgets of the marketers. Most of the markets now have separate budgets for influencer marketing.

Despite the drawbacks, influencer marketing is here to stay. Nearly eighty-six percent of the brands using influencer marketing are reaping the rewards, surveys say. Studies also revealed that influencer content is outperforming the own content of the brands.